Educators, Supporters Turn Out for National Adjunct Action Day

Rallies across San Diego area colleges highlight the struggle against ‘adjunctification’

SAN DIEGO – At events held today across the region, San Diego area adjunct faculty and their supporters spoke out against the marginalization of contingent faculty in higher education as part of National Adjunct Walkout Day.

“The simple fact is that the situation confronting adjuncts and part-timers has been growing steadily worse over the past 30 or 40 years, and enough adjuncts are becoming aware of the injustices and exploitation they face that many have finally reached a tipping point,” said Ian Duckles, Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at Cuyamaca College, Mesa College, Miramar College, and the University of San Diego.

Rallies were held at City, Grossmont, Mesa, Palomar and Southwestern colleges. University of California, San Diego, held a student walkout followed by a rally and teach-in.

“This is the age of the precarious worker who lacks the financial means to resist the onslaught of policies that make income inequality the status quo,” John Hoskins, Adjunct Professor of English at Mesa College, and co-editor of adjunctcrisis.com. “It is time to empower the precarious. Nationally, the adjunct army is rising to resist 'adjunctification.' Tenured faculty, students, all precarious workers and those who care about social justice are coming to their side. Truly, we’re all in this together."

Rally attendees were asked to write a letter to Gov. Jerry Brown asking that he allocate additional funding for paid office hours, parity compensation and for the conversion of existing part-time temporary faculty to full-time faculty status.

Many students spoke out in support of adjunct professors. “Over the years I have had a mix of full-time and part-time professors,” said Bianca Arellano, student at San Diego City College. “I have never, ever, been able to tell the difference between teaching style. The only difference I have witnessed is stress level. Part-time teachers are always more stressed. It is not because the class content, it is because the unfair pay they have to make work."

“Indeed, most colleges in America run on the backs of adjunct instructors who don’t receive the same pay for the same work as do the shrinking pool of full-time faculty,” said Jim Miller, Professor of English and Labor Studies at San Diego City College. “If this trend continues unabated, we may very well be seeing a generation of what some have dubbed ‘the last professors’ with any form of professional autonomy and/or adequate compensation."

#####The CFT represents over 25,000 faculty in thirty community college districts, non-senate faculty and librarians in the University of California; and 120,000 educational workers at every level of the education system, from early childhood to higher education. More info: www.cft.org